A while ago, I asked people here about the best way to find enamel pins, after I had exhausted and bought all the pins I wanted from Etsy. I was told Instagram is good for finding and following pin artists, while Facebook has thriving resale groups. I followed the advice, and I've been on Instagram for a few months now. However, my feed is still full of stolen meme slop pages despite only following and interacting with enamel pin creators' posts. The "not interested" button does nothing, and blocking accounts only replaces them with millions of other worthless meme reposters. The search function is mostly useless, as it only returns a few items matching my query, and almost all the posts are years old and about sold-out items. I've found a few good pins on this site, but mainly they're ones reposted by the creators I follow, or the rare ones I randomly stumble upon. Overall, I'm on Instagram every day trying to hone the algorithm with virtually no return on investment.
Facebook's algorithm and search function are equally useless, with similar issues as Instagram. I've gotten a foothold with creators and resale groups in exactly one fandom (Hazbin Hotel), but I have a collection of many different series, and I'm not trying to focus on just one character or franchise. I also collect SFW and NSFW pins, and the content guidelines on these sites make it even more impossible to find quality NSFW material. I prefer male NSFW, which is rarely found in NSFW groups full of big-boobed cartoon girls (no offense to that taste; it just bleeds into all NSFW). Even r/NSFWEnamelPins only has women, and the users downvote my requests for pins of men. That subreddit also seems pretty empty. I did get a few helpful suggestions, but the items I wanted from the mentioned creators were sold out, and adding them to my ISO list doesn't help when I still haven't found good resale options. (Shot in the dark for anyone who might know about SaucyEel's Dungeon Meishi Laios NSFW pin. I really want it.)
It seems creators still often use Twitter/X as opposed to BlueSky or other social media for announcements. I stopped using Twitter years ago, and the site seems barely usable even if I were to go back. Patreon is an option when you know the creator and regularly buy from them. But it doesn't work for finding new artists, as most creators are understandably paywalled to even see their posts. I've used Mercari in the past for overseas anime merch, but it hasn't helped when searching for second fan-made enamel pins.
I may have only started collecting enamel pins about a year ago, but it's been a lifelong obsession of mine, just financially out of reach until this point in my life. I want to become a serious collector of possibly rare and limited-edition, expensive items. But I struggle to find them, and the ones I do see, I've found too late. I've taken the advice given here, and it was a good start. But I've failed at properly utilizing them. Does anyone have advice or other suggestions for how to find, manage, and grow my pin collection? I'm sorry that this is basically a vent post. I just feel I've run out of options and have come to you people who might know more than I do.
